Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 4, 2025
To gain the whole country they had need to break the power of Triggvi Olafson and Gudrod Biornson, both grandsons of Harald Fairhair, who ruled as independent kings. To do this in open warfare was not easy.
"Then I take it that I am speaking with King Ranald, of whom Odda has so much to say," he said, without answering my last words. "I am Ranald Vemundsson," I said; "but this ship is all my kingdom now. Harald Fairhair has the land that should have been mine. I am but a sea king."
Now, Edith Fairhair sat in the highseat when this was told, and she became very curious about it. Ulf sat silently by, with his chin in his hand, with the firelight flashing from his mail, and listened. When the tale was told, and they were alone, they looked into each other's eyes, and both laughed softly, each reading the same thought. "Would'st care to go, Edith?"
I thought it plain that he had trouble at times in keeping back the pride and haughtiness which I had heard had been the fault in both Neot and himself, for now and then they showed plainly. Then he made haste to make amends if one was hurt by what he had said in haste. But altogether I thought him even more kingly than the mighty Harald Fairhair in some ways.
He had known all along of his descent from King Harald Fairhair, but not until now did he fully and clearly understand that by the death of his father and of all his father's brothers he was himself at this moment the sole heir to the throne of Norway.
Too wise to linger long in that unfriendly air after the death of his friend the great King, he kept the seas as a free trader, and far and wide roamed the longship which he commanded. That flag was like no other's, for it was as black as a crow's wing, save in the centre, where gleamed in the snow-white embroidery of Edith Fairhair a snarling white bear's head. Once, indeed, Ulf got lost.
The other shades the eyes; for, even in this statue of him, Leif Ericsson is still the crosser of far seas, the finder of strange lands, the sleepless watcher forever gazing from beneath his shadowed brows into the golden west. Back at the fjord, what happened to Edith Fairhair while Ulf was on the ocean? Apparently nothing worth recording.
It may be easily understood, then, with what an outburst of indignation a free and warlike race beheld the violent course pursued by Harald Fairhair, who roamed through the country with fire and sword, trampling on their cherished laws and privileges, subduing the petty kings, and placing them, when submissive, as Jarls, i.e. earls or governors over the districts to collect the scatt or taxes, and manage affairs in his name and for his behoof.
In the course of several days Hauskuld and his men arrived at the small fiord near the head of which stood the dwelling of Atli. This Atli was an unusually intelligent man, a man of great influence in his district, and one who, like Erling the Bold, was determined to resist the tyranny of Harald Fairhair.
But in addition to this there was the undoubted fact that he was a direct descendant of Harald Fairhair, and had therefore the greatest of all claims to the kingdom in which his fathers had reigned.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking